


matters of life and death

by sweetestsight



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Life-Affirming Sex, M/M, Ridge Farm, mentions of illness and death, post-hepatitis scare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22732333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetestsight/pseuds/sweetestsight
Summary: It was simple. Brian had gotten sick; Brian had recovered; life had gone on.For some reason John can't stop grieving for him anyway.
Relationships: John Deacon/Brian May
Comments: 28
Kudos: 86





	matters of life and death

He tells himself it’s alright until it sticks. He chants it like any rhythm, beating it into his head over and over until it refuses to dislodge.

_It’s alright. It’s alright. Everything is okay._

It’s stuck there now. It marks minutes and seconds like anything.

His steps fall to the rhythm of the beat, one after another after another; it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright. It beats away in his head, beats away against the floor, and measures his steps as he walks down the hall. His shoes reach the point where the threadbare woven runner gives way to heavy oak slats, shadows still concealing him from the lights of the kitchen, and that’s where he pauses.

He can hear Brian around the corner.

He’s singing quietly. He’s singing along; John doesn’t recognize it but it’s acoustic and scratchy on the stereo, and it just makes his soft murmur-singing sound even sweeter, even more domestic. Somewhere in the room water is splashing. He’s doing dishes, maybe.

_It’s alright. It’s alright._

He stays where he is, hovering in the dark of the hallway. He stays and he breathes. He keeps the pace deep and measured even as his heart picks up. The pounding of it is nauseating. He can feel it in the back of his throat. He can feel the oily queasiness of it balling in his chest. For a moment he can’t even breathe around it.

In and out. One-two-three-four, just like he’s always known. It’s a rhythm. If there’s one thing he knows, it’s how to keep a rhythm.

_It’s alright. It’s alright._

He counts down from ten. When he feels like he can breathe again he steps into the kitchen.

Brian turns, sees him and then jumps, thick white suds splashing out of the sink and dampening the front of his button-down. He doesn’t seem to notice, flashing a small smile over his shoulder as he continues with his task, his hands nearly up to their elbows in warm, soapy water. His rings and watch are sitting side-by-side on the windowsill, safe from the water. “That didn’t take too long,” he says. “Was Roger driving?”

“No,” he says, and then belatedly he remembers the bags in his hands and places them on the thick, sturdy surface of the long dining table. “It was just quiet, is all. Not much traffic.”

“Did you get everything?”

“I think so.” He’d read the list about six times over: beer for Roger, cigarettes for Freddie, an actual list of groceries that he’d added himself and then a few items Brian had supplemented it with. Soap, mainly, and a few specific produce requests. Paul had added a request for whiskey which he’d pointedly ignored.

Brian reaches for another dish. His hand is pink when it comes out of the water, and John can’t look away for a moment. His left hand remains invisible, concealed by the bubbles.

His silence must have been odd, or even uncharacteristic; Brian looks over his shoulder once more, his humming ceasing abruptly and his mouth pinching at the corners as he meets John’s eyes. “Are you alright?”

_I’m fine. I’m fine I’m fine it’s fine its_ “I’m fine.”

Brian watches him for a moment, frowning. Water drips into the full sink as he pulls his hands away, drying them on a dishcloth and pacing closer slowly. “You’ve seemed tired.”

“Nothing different than usual, then.”

“You should take a nap.”

He sees the beginning of a movement in Brian’s shoulder, like he’s going to reach out for him. Before he can even start John turns quickly away and toward the stairs, ignoring the way Brian’s mouth flattens. “Don’t worry about me,” he calls over his shoulder.

“I can’t really help it. None of us can.”

“Seriously, Brian. Don’t. I’m fine.” _I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine it’s fine._

From the stillness of the air behind himself he can tell that Brian hasn’t moved, that he’s still standing there, dish towel in hand as he watches John jog quickly down the steps to his room in the basement. John pretends not to notice.

He shuts the basement door behind himself and falls onto his lumpy mattress, the familiar damp chill of the room brushing his skin and preparing its slow seep into his bones. It’s been long enough since they arrived here that he’s nearly grown used to it, not that he’s particularly pleased. He isn’t upset, either. He isn’t sure he can feel much in either direction, not when his thoughts are weighing so heavily.

He sleeps, but not restfully.

The color white haunts him. An unending whine haunts him. “What is your greatest fear?” a woman asks, far away. “What is your greatest fear? What is your—”

The words appear before him in a sea of white: _What is your greatest fear?_

“I don’t know,” he replies.

The woman is silent for a long moment. Then, out of the blue, he hears Roger’s voice. “Liar,” it says blandly.

He smells freesias.

He snaps awake to the sound of humming. Freddie’s hand is carding through his hair. The humming pauses as John shifts, and then picks up quietly where it left off.

“Where’s Roger?” John rasps.

“Doing laundry.”

“He dyed all my shirts pink the last time.”

Freddie laughs. “You look wonderful in pink. It brings out your lips.”

“It washes me out,” John argues. “It goes against the whole black-white thing we have going on.”

Freddie hums at that. “We all break it up every now and then. You could do to rebel a little.”

Maybe he will. The white sea of his dreams haunts him, and when he shivers slightly Freddie ruffles his hair. “How long was I out?” he asks.

“An hour or so.”

“Has anyone made dinner yet?”

“I’ve got some soup cooking. Are you hungry, darling?”

He grunts noncommittedly and stretches. “Is it bad to say that all this cooking for ourselves is getting a little old?”

“Is that a slight against my food?” Freddie gasps in mock affront.

“No. At least you put in the effort.”

“I’m pretty sure Roger’s just pretending to be bad at it so we don’t force him to do it more.”

“We should force him to do it more anyway. If he’s not faking being that useless then he could use some practice.”

Freddie raises his eyebrows. “I’d rather preserve the sanctity of the kitchen,” he says primly.

John follows him upstairs when he stands and leaves the room, follows him to the kitchen to set the table, follows him through the motions of dinner. His eyes meet Brian’s for a split second as they all sit down, but just as fast he finds himself looking away. Try as he might, he can’t get the courage to look at him again.

He lets the three of them chat and banter alone, their volume growing by the minute, and allows himself to interject the bare minimum amount in order to keep up the semblance of normality. Which is exactly what this is, because he’s fine. Everything’s okay.

He can feel the weight of Brian’s gaze the entire time.

He watches them the next day.

He sits on the back steps to the farmhouse and smokes his way through a pack of cigarettes until he’s dizzy with it and feels like screaming, and then he just watches the three of them frolic about under the sun. They can’t seem to stop laughing. Roger is trying and failing to wrestle a piece of rope away from the farm’s dog, and Brian and Freddie are cackling themselves hoarse over the spectacle of it as Roger falls on his ass yet again. John lights another cigarette and allows himself to smile.

“Got a light?” a voice asks behind him, and John turns to see Paul lurking in the doorway.

John can’t very well say no, not when the lighter is still in his hand. In his dizzy and half-giddy state he considers it. Roger would do it in a heartbeat.

But then, John isn’t Roger.

He nods and hands it over, waiting patiently until Paul hands it back and then slumping a little in dismay when he takes that small act of generosity as an invitation to sit down on the steps beside him.

“Not in the partying mood, are you?” Paul asks, eyes trained on the three on the lawn.

“No,” John says shortly.

“You should take advantage of it while you can. It’s gonna be hard work these next few days.”

“It’s already hard work,” he says with a sigh, stubbing out his cigarette. The head rush of it is getting to him finally.

He can feel Paul’s eyes on him, cool and assessing. “Maybe it’s just that you’re making it harder than it really needs to be. You should loosen up a little, John.”

“Someone needs to keep an eye on things. Nobody else is going to do it.”

Paul frowns. “You really mean that? We’ve all got each other’s backs.”

John doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have a response, and he doesn’t want to have to come up with one. Maybe the others have his back. If they do then more power to them, but either way Paul is not and never has been included on the list of people John trusts.

Besides, it’s not like he’s going to put that kind of pressure on someone again either way.

“Queen protects his own,” is all he says. He turns as he does, just in time to see Paul tear his eyes guiltily away from the sight of Freddie wrestling Roger into the grass. “It’s what we do. It’s what I do. I’m not willing to take risks with people I don’t trust. Not after last time.”

Paul blinks at him, blue eyes wide and startled, and John doesn’t wait for him to say anything. He just lights a new cigarette and turns back to where his boys are rolling around on the grass.

They look well. There’s nothing for him to worry about, not at the moment. He should stop worrying, should stop grieving.

He would, but he can’t.

Some days he feels like he’s walking on eggshells. He knows better than any of them that anything can go wrong at any moment, completely out of the blue. Corruption can happen; death, that can happen too. Illness and injury aren’t things that can’t be predicted.

He has to be vigilant.

Other days he feels like he’s silently grieving for someone who isn’t even dead, and the world keeps turning around him.

Nothing happened. Nothing bad happened. It’s alright, really. Everything is fine, and yet he can’t shake the feeling. He can’t shake the grief. He can’t shake the fear that it’ll happen again, this time for real.

And all the while, everyone else is fine. All the while, nobody can seem to see what’s wrong with him. Nobody seems to understand what John did.

“Liar,” the voice in his dreams says.

He’s standing in a sea of white and the smell of freesias is cloying. It’s sickeningly strong, tugging the ever-present feeling of nausea and anxiety straight into the forefront of his mind.

“Liar. Liar, liar.”

“I’m not afraid,” he calls to it.

“Don’t be scared,” says Roger.

He’s sitting across from John at a plastic card table. The surface is grey and porous. John recognizes it, distantly. There’s a bouquet on the top, and Roger is wearing white. John sits down across from him, and Roger shoots him a smile before he continues writing on the sheet of paper sitting before him.

“I’m not,” John insists.

He watches the easy movement of his hands. They’re cut and bloody the way they used to get after concerts sometimes, back in the old days. He doesn’t seem to notice. Roger tilts his head. “We’ll make it through this, John.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I suppose I don’t,” Roger replies, this time with a wry smile. There are dark shadows under his eyes and his hair is greasy. He’s got makeup on, caked and old. His eyeliner is smudged beneath his eyes, making the shadows worse. “Nothing I can guarantee, anyway. I’ll tell you this, though. We’re stronger than family. Whatever happens, we’ll tackle it together, alright? Just the way we always have.”

Together. _Together._

“We’ll handle it together,” Brian says, and it’s dark, his face lit only by the desk lamp, “just the same way we handle everything else, alright?”

“Of course,” John murmurs. “Of course, yeah. Thank you, Brian.”

And then the lights go out, and Brian is gone, and John wakes up.

It’s only been mere hours. The sun isn’t even properly up yet, the world still grey and soft and quiet. He pads silently up the stairs to the kitchen and out to the back porch.

It’s warm out already. The air lacks the bite he’d been expecting. It’s been a beautiful summer.

He lights a cigarette and lets the smoke scratch his lungs. He can almost be at peace out here.

Almost.

Any day now. It’ll come any day now. They’ve been waiting on the final documents releasing them from their contract, and Jim is still finalizing their new one that will give them their freedom back. Most likely the announcement will come through a phone call rather than a simple letter, but he still can’t stop staring at the road where he knows the postman will appear.

Any day now. It won’t solve everything, but it’ll solve a lot.

He sits there all morning. He barely moves. He watches the sun rise then meander high into the sky, watches the wind start to blow, watches the others begin to wake up and move around.

Loss can be a heavy word, a heavy concept. He feels like he's lost something, and he has. He's lost a friend, maybe, but not in the way he expected to. Everyone lived, and that's more than he could've asked for. That’s what he tells himself.

He stubs out his cigarette and watches Brian walk slowly through the grass, twelve-string gripped carefully in the graceful fingers of his left hand, and he doesn't feel any happier. 

“He should come in before he catches a cold,” Roger says, dropping a plate in front of John before settling with his own. 

John looks down at it: grilled cheese and oven-baked chips. He raises his eyebrows. “Thought you couldn't cook.”

“Oh, hush,” Roger gripes through a mouthful of food. “It's my signature dish you're looking at here.”

“So you can?”

“Don't tell Freddie,” Roger says, eyebrows raised hopefully. 

John scoffs and picks at his chips. He can feel Roger’s eyes on him, but he doesn't expect him to speak. Usually the three of them don't say anything if they have a problem, too afraid of the eggshells crunching beneath a less-than-careful foot. 

Roger has always been a risk taker. 

“You've seemed a bit low recently,” he says, tone purposefully conversational. “I thought I'd try to make one thing easier. I know cooking can be a bit of a slog, and. I don't know. You haven't really been eating much.”

“I haven't been hungry,” John mutters. 

“And I wanted to check on you, I guess. Are you doing alright?” 

“Fine, yeah,” John says. 

“Paul’s not driving you too far up the wall?” Roger asks with a smile. 

John huffs out a surprised laugh. “No. No more than usual. How Freddie tolerates him I’ll never understand.”

“The fact that he keeps us stocked with wine might have something to do with it.”

“Mmh.”

Roger’s watching him probingly now though, eyes sharp. “It's hard being away from home.”

“Are you homesick?”

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

Roger is silent for a beat, and they're interrupted by the clopping of Brian’s clogs as he walks up the wooden steps leading into the back of the house. His eyes linger on the two of them, a smile quirking up the corner of his mouth as he steps closer. “Who cooked?” he asks, eyeing John’s food. 

Roger gives John a pointed look, and John sighs. “I did.”

“There’s a little more on the stove if you’re up for it,” Roger supplies. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright, yeah. I might make some rice though. Do you know where Fred is?” 

“Studio, last I checked.” 

“I’ll bring him some. Cheers.”

He reaches over John’s shoulder to steal a chip, hand brushing John’s hair. He almost jumps out of his skin at the feeling of it, feather-light and fully accidental, and then just as quickly Brian is gone, humming under his breath as he leaves the room. 

John makes the mistake of looking to Roger as he leaves. 

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Roger murmurs softly. 

“What?” 

“He’s bothering you.” 

John ducks his head, hunkering down over his food. “Don’t be ridiculous, Roger.”

“No, you’re the one who’s being ridiculous,” Roger replies, but his eyes are gentle and concerned. “You don’t need to deny it. I know you better than that, Deaks.”

“It’s not about that,” John tries.

Roger sighs, setting his shoulders. “I thought you guys were good.”

John pointedly doesn’t say anything.

“You were practically best friends last year, especially during all the contract renegotiation stuff. Is that what happened? You guys fought over the new contract?”

“He, Jim and I _wrote_ the new contract,” John grumbles. “Why would we agree to a contract one of us didn’t like?”

“Sue me for trying to figure this out,” Roger snaps. “You two were attached at the hip right until he got admitted to the hospital.”

John feels his jaw tick. “None of this is your problem. You don’t need to try to—”

“Like hell it isn’t my problem. Like hell.” John meets his eyes finally, but Roger is just glaring back. “If you want to pretend nothing’s wrong, knock yourself out. See if I care. But don’t for a second pretend that it doesn’t affect the rest of us. We’re family. Don’t you know what that means?”

“Of course I know what—”

“It means we look out for each other. It means when we have a problem, we fix it. We don’t just let it stew.” Roger licks his lips slowly. “Part of me doesn’t even really care what your issue is. Do whatever. Tell me about it or don’t, I don’t care. Just figure it out.”

“We’ll make it through this,” Brian tells him in his dreams.

“You don’t even know how deep it goes,” John tells him, frowning. Brian doesn’t get it. Brian doesn’t understand.

Brian tilts his head. He looks younger, a little less skinny. “Explain it to me, then.”

It’s not that easy. It’s never that easy.

The world clouds with white. “It’s not that easy,” a woman says. “I wish I could say it was. Sometimes there’s no easy solution.”

John’s world is falling apart piece by piece.

He sees yellow and red. The air feels dry. It smells too sanitary, too recycled. The engines are roaring outside and he can’t stop crying. His eyes burn.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Freddie whispers.

“The rains are coming,” Brian tells him. “Wash the sick world—he says we’re…”

“Shh. I know, honey. You’re alright.”

“Death is bone-white.”

“I know.”

_Death is a bone-white haze._

“Do you need some space?” the woman whispers to him. She’s wearing blue, all blue. It matches her eyeshadow.

The floor is white vinyl. Freddie is smiling at him comfortingly, but his eyes are wet. His mascara is smeared.

_What is your greatest fear?_

“I’m not afraid of anything,” John screams, but it comes out as a mumble.

_Liar._

“Cancer,” his mother says.

_Cancer,_ Brian’s horoscope says. _Gentle, domestic, emotional, highly imaginative, loyal._

“It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart.”

_Beware of snakes in the grass. Your trusting nature can betray you._

“He’s gonna be just fine.”

_What is your greatest fear?_

“What is your greatest fear?” Roger asks, voice amused.

_WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST FEAR_

Cancer. Gentle, domestic, emotional, beautiful, so, so delicate, so much more fragile than he seems.

“Liar.”

March 29th, 1962. That was the day of his funeral. It was sunny. It was the only sunny day all spring.

“Brimi,” he whispers, the recycled air stinging his eyes. He can’t hear Brian’s breathing over the sound of the engines. For a moment he’s convinced he’s dead.

“Where’s John?” Brian murmurs.

“I’m right here.”

“I miss him.”

“Brian, I’m right here.”

“The sun’s gone out.”

“Brian…”

But Brian is still for a long beat, a frown marring the clammy skin of his forehead. Finally he takes in a shaky breath. “Tell him I miss him.”

He wakes up at five. The basement is pitch black, and for one long moment he can’t breathe.

_It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything is okay,_ he tells himself over and over, because it is. It’s okay. They’re all okay. Nothing happened.

“Mail,” Paul announces flatly. He drops it on the table, grabbing a scone as he passes.

Roger glares up at him through his bangs. “Help yourself, then.”

“I was the one who bought them.”

“On whose dime?”

“Trident’s, as far as I’m aware.”

“Paul,” Freddie says flatly. “Please. It’s too early for arguing.”

Paul shrugs, mouth full. It’s just as well. This way none of them have to listen to him talk.

Brian sighs and grabs at a stack of magazines buried under various bills and envelopes. “What’s this, then?”

Roger squints. “Rolling Stone.”

“Thanks, Rog. Helpful.”

Paul gulps down his scone. “They were sent up here for the interviews.” At everyone’s skeptical looks he rolls his eyes. “You know. The interviews you gave two months ago? They were published today.”

“Were they?” Freddie muses. “Finally. Pass one here, then.”

Brian pushes one toward him, handing another across the table when Roger waves his hand. “I don’t know that I remember this one.”

“Well you wouldn’t, would you? You were recovering from surgery at the time, from what I remember. They gave us these little sheets to fill out with answers.”

“They put photocopies in,” Roger says, spreading the page open between himself and John. “Aw, that’s kind of cute, actually.”

John blinks down at the page.

_What is your greatest fear?_

Roger had put _oppression_. That’s sweet. Freddie had written _snakes and spiders._

“Oh, I remember this now,” Roger says. “Yeah, _‘favorite food.’_ Freddie, you didn’t answer.”

“They didn’t let me put the answer I wanted.”

“You put ass, didn’t you?”

“…No.”

Brian has gone eerily silent across the table. His eyes are trained on the page in front of him, reading it over and over again.

“Honestly, I barely even remember filling these out,” Freddie says. “It was a long night, that. We barely got any rest.”

John remembers; John remembers dragging himself through the interview, letting Roger and Freddie do most of the talking while his own mind remained occupied with everything from their crumbling contract to their ailing guitarist.

June wasn’t his best month.

Brian looks up and meets his eyes.

“I certainly don’t remember it,” Paul cuts in. “I was stuck in that horrible meeting at the time. It was nasty business, having to debate the ways in which you thought Trident was failing to—”

“Nastier than almost having your arm chopped off?” Roger says rudely.

Brian is watching him solemnly, and John can feel himself begin to shake. This isn’t how he wants to talk about this. He doesn’t want to talk about this at all.

He can’t be here right now.

“John,” Brian starts softly.

The bench screeches against the floor as he stands up quickly, stepping over it and all but racing to the back door. He flings the screen open hard enough that it bangs against the wall and forces himself to take the stairs at a walk even has his heart pounds. He quickens his pace as he hears the door open again behind himself, Brian calling after him.

He makes it to the barn in peace, but barely. His bare feet have just hit the edge of one of the many worn and dirty oriental rugs adorning the floor when he feels a hand on his arm.

“John—”

“I’m fine, Brian,” he says sharply. “Go back inside. I’ll be in in a minute.”

Brian sighs and tugs at his arm gently. “Don’t tell me you’re fine,” he says quietly. “I know you can’t stand being in the same room as me anymore, but I can still tell when you’re lying.”

He shakes his head resolutely, not turning around. His heart rate rises from pounding to racing; he feels sick, feels dizzy and he isn’t even sure why. Everything is _fine._ Nothing is the matter.

“John,” Brian says, and it’s soft enough to almost be tender. “I don’t—if you don’t want to talk to me about it I can go get Fred or Rog, alright? Please just talk to somebody. Say _something._ I might be the last person you want here, but I still hate to see you like this.”

“Stop saying that,” he gets out finally, his head spinning.

Brian is silent for a long moment. “I…what?”

“Just _stop_ , okay? I want you here.” He turns around finally and Brian’s hand falls awkwardly away from his arm, his eyes big and startled. “We were—I hated you in the beginning, and then we were friends and then we were something _else_ , and don’t look so surprised because you know damned well what I’m talking about.”

“John—”

“But then everything changed, and I wish we could go back but we can’t. There’s too much in the way. So stop acting like I hate you because I _don’t._ I wish you wouldn’t hate me. I wish—”

“I don’t hate you,” Brian gets in finally, and fuck, now he sounds hurt. Of all people he shouldn’t be the one who sounds small.

“You should,” John tells him flatly.

“Why on earth would I—”

“You should! I was the one who let things get so far out of control!”

The surprise on Brian’s face is finally replaced by confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Stirring up a fuss about the finances was one thing, but I should have been the one handling it from then on out! I shouldn’t even have gotten you involved!”

“I involved myself,” Brian says slowly, his frown deepening. “None of us would have expected you to have done all that on your own. You’re the youngest of—”

“I’m 23. I’m not a fucking kid.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t need to pretend you’ve got it all figured out, either.”

“What? Like you do? What do you know?”

“I know that you’re trying to make this into your fault when it isn’t. No, shut up,” he says flatly when John splutters. “Whatever you think is on you, it isn’t. Everything worked out in the end. Our contract is over in a few weeks. We’re gonna be alright, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He wouldn’t say that if he knew. “It’s not alright.”

“What’s not alright?”

“They said—the doctors said you weren’t eating enough.”

Brian raises his eyebrows. “Okay? Is that all?”

“They said that stress can compromise people’s immune systems. Not eating or sleeping or worrying over money can make people really sick.”

Understanding finally seems to dawn as Brian’s face shutters. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, I’m—”

“You’re _kidding,_ ” Brian says again, deadly quiet.

His eyes are flat and frigidly cold. It’s the way he looks at their managers, the way he looks at fucking _Paul,_ and John’s heart sinks. “I know. Brian—”

“You’re seriously trying to blame yourself for this.”

John falls silent.

“John,” Brian says slowly, voice still barely above a whisper. “I got hepatitis from a _dirty needle._ How is that your fault?”

“Did you not just hear—”

“A dirty needle, John. You haven’t been talking to me for the last six months because of a dirty fucking needle?”

“You got gangrene, too,” John says weakly. “And an ulcer.”

“Yeah, I recall, actually,” Brian says, tone tight with sarcasm. “I didn’t realize I contracted those from you.”

“I _told_ you—”

“I know what you said,” Brian says, shutting his eyes and running a hand over them. “Fuck. I know. I can’t believe this. You’re done blaming yourself for that, alright?”

“Brian—”

“No. You’re done. That wasn’t your fault, that was—oh, shit, come here.”

He tugs John closer and John finally allows himself to go, to fold himself neatly into Brian’s space and hide his face in his curls. He’d feel bad for clinging but Brian seems just as inclined to never let go of him, one hand wrapped tightly around his waist and the other rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder blades. He only holds him tighter as John’s breath hitches.

“You’re okay, alright? I’m okay, too. And I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I scared you that badly. Come on, it’s alright. What’s really bothering you? You know this isn’t your fault. What is it?”

And he really only has one secret left. He wants desperately to hold it to his chest where Brian will never see it, but in the end he can’t keep it in.

“I never came to visit you,” John whispers.

“What?”

“I didn’t come to visit you in the hospital. You could have died, you were dying, and I never…” John feels him sigh and sinks closer into him.

“Oh, Deaky. Is that all?”

He sniffles. “That’s all. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want—Fred and Rog kept saying that you were—that you were in a bad way and I didn’t _want—_ ”

“Come on, it’s alright.”

“I’m sorry,” he chokes. “I’m so sorry. And I can’t stop seeing it. I feel like you’re still dying, like you’re already dead, and you’re _not._ Everything’s fine but I can’t stop seeing it.”

“I’m not mad. I don’t blame you. Your greatest fear is illness and death? Is that true?”

John nods, struggles with words for a moment, and then gives up. “My dad,” he says simply.

Brian holds him tighter. “It doesn’t matter to me, alright? I don’t care. I don’t remember anything from the hospital anyway, I was so drugged up,” he says with a huff of a laugh. “I wouldn’t have known if you’d visited me or not. I probably wouldn’t even have recognized you. It’s okay. And it’s all in the past, anyway. We’re alright.”

John lets out a shaky sigh at that. Hesitantly, almost hoping Brian won’t notice, he moves the hand pressed against his chest sideways until it trails across his arm, his fingers brushing under the sleeve of his t-shirt until they graze over raised scar tissue.

He doesn’t miss the way Brian shivers slightly. “Do you want to—would it help?” Brian asks softly. “For you to see?”

John unearths himself from the cloud of his hair carefully, backing just far enough away that he can see his arm.

“Here,” Brian murmurs, pulling his sleeve up a little with his other hand.

There’s a scar, a twisted crescent-shaped thing. It’s big enough that it takes up a good deal of his arm, big enough that John suddenly understands all the better why Brian’s time in the studio last year had been punctuated by him trying to rub at it subtly between recording sessions. He traces it as lightly as he can, but Brian doesn’t wince.

It’s just a scar.

Brian ducks his head to look at him carefully from under his lashes. He pulls a step away before dragging his shirt over his head and off entirely, and he’s still too skinny but—

“Here,” Brian says, taking his hand and putting it on the scar running directly down the center of his stomach. “See? It’s alright.”

“It doesn’t look alright,” John mumbles. 

“It’s fine. Look.”

And it really does look fine—still pink, still horribly out of place against the skin of his torso, a perfectly straight ridge right in the middle and impossible to ignore—but he’s _fine,_ he’s okay, he’s warm and alive and breathing beneath John’s fingers, his chest rising and falling. He’s corporeal and solid and still too skinny and on a host of vitamins to help his immune system recover, but he’s okay. He’s fine.

He’s really fine.

“It’s okay,” Brian says softly, then hesitates for a moment before ducking forward to kiss just under John’s eye feather-light. It’s only when John traces the wetness off his mouth with a careful thumb that John realizes that he was kissing away a tear. “See? There you go.”

“I should have come to talk to you,” John murmurs. “When you were first starting to recover, I should have come to you. I’m so sorry. I should have come.”

“It’s alright. It’s done,” Brian murmurs.

Brian leads the two of them gradually backward until he’s able to fall backward onto the couch, eyes warm and looking up at John hesitantly, and that’s what finally calms him. He takes a seat next to him, then turns and puts his feet up in the inches of space between them because he doesn’t want to take his eyes off Brian quite yet. Something in Brian’s eyes changes then, some sort of half-dare and half-wish making them somehow darker and more observant, and that has John scooting a little closer toward him until they’re pressed together. When Brian doesn’t react he slowly moves his legs across his lap, letting out a breath when Brian reaches out to pull him closer.

The silence is stifling, suddenly.

Brian takes initiative to break it. “We were good back before everything, weren’t we?”

John nods. They’d been good; really, they had been. Maybe they weren’t as close as they were with the others, but they’d been in sync and sharp nonetheless. They were a well-oiled machine with the finances until everything came tumbling down.

And they’d been friends. They’d been close. They always will be.

“You think we can get back there again?” Brian asks with a smile. The fear in his eyes gives him away.

John swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, I think so.”

That makes Brian’s smile a touch warmer, eyes drifting to where his own fingers are fidgeting restlessly. Still, though. Still it’s not enough.

“You ever think we can be even better?” he tries.

That has Brian’s eyes snapping back up.

“I can’t lose you again,” John says.

“You never lost me.”

“You know what I mean. I can’t come close to that and I can’t stop talking to you.”

“Then don’t.”

“ _Brian,_ ” he says, half pleading. “Just let me—I never told you, alright? Will you let me?”

“You don’t need to.”

“No, I do. I…we were handling the weight of the world, the weight of everything, and that’s all over now. We have people who can do that for us now—”

“You’re never going to let someone else do it,” Brian says with a shadow of a wry smile, his hands coming to rest on John’s knees. “Not entirely, anyway.”

“Not entirely. That’s not the point though, alright? We were handling every single thing that came our way and I never got to tell you back then that that meant something. We meant something.”

He chances another glance up. Brian is already looking back, staring solemnly into his eyes.

“Didn’t we? Didn’t we mean—”

Brian takes pity on him then. He ducks forward and presses their lips together.

It isn’t perfect, as kisses go. John’s too high-strung for it, his lips shaky and his frame tense. It only lasts for a moment before Brian’s pulling away.

“We meant something,” he murmurs. “You meant something to me, okay? You still do. You always will. Don’t doubt that. You—”

John doesn’t let him finish and surges toward him to kiss him again.

The second time is a little bit closer to perfect.

Brian’s hands come up to his hair, framing his face gently, but when he bites Brian’s lip he lets out the most hushed sigh that John can’t hold back anymore. He leans forward as far as he can, Brian twisting awkwardly to try to press their torsos together, and John finally gets his wits about himself and pushes him gently sideways until he gets the message and leans backward until his head hits the armrest, John straddling his lap. When John finally breaks their kiss it’s to see Brian’s cheeks flushed, lips swollen red and quirked up into a hazy smile.

“There you go,” Brian whispers to him. “See? There you are.”

And it’s different than before. It’s what they used to be, but not—the pieces of themselves that they used to try to fit together in the beginning, long before the trouble with money and managers and recording studios. It’s them as they were in the early days, when Freddie was still a kid with a head full of dreams and Roger was still a student failing all his dentistry classes; when Brian was a bit too self-assured and a bit too nervous, and when John was brand new, still trying to find his way in the world as he navigated the thin line between school and what Queen was slowly turning into.

It’s just them, and yet it’s not.

He knows Brian intimately. He knew him then, in those earlier days as they tried to find a way forward together. He knows him now in the way he gasps, the way he twists and squirms. He knows him in the familiar lines of his face, in the new marks on his body. He knows him.

He kisses him and Brian lets him; he goes pliant for him and lets John manipulate the two of them together. When John bites his lip he gasps and sucks his tongue in return; when John grinds down against him he sighs and presses up to meet him.

His fingers drift down to the hem of John’s shirt and tug at it questioningly, and John pulls away. “Here?” he whispers.

Brian nods, eyes big and pleading, waiting. “Please,” he whispers.

“Someone could find us. Paul, or—”

“Don’t talk about Paul,” Brian says, and John snorts a laugh and tugs his own shirt off.

He leaves open space when he leans back to do it, and it’s space that Brian immediately fills, sitting up and framing his hips with his hands as he attaches his mouth to John’s shoulder. John lets him, leans back and revels in it as he twists his hands in Brian’s hair. It feels good, all of it—it’s dizzyingly real, visceral and wonderful to be touched like this—to be able to touch him like this after so much and so long.

He can’t get enough of it.

The two of them build up a rhythm, hips rolling together through their jeans, and he knows he isn’t going to last like this. It’s only going to end in embarrassment, coming together like this only half-unclothed like teenagers, but he can’t help it. He knows Brian can’t help it, not really, knows somehow by the way he’s breathing against the side of John’s face and letting out tiny, hushed moans like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

“Brian,” John breathes. “Stop. Stop, I’m gonna come.”

Brian snorts breathlessly against his shoulder. _“Don’t you misfire,”_ he sings under his breath.

It startles a laugh out of John, and he smacks him lightly on his right shoulder.

“What? I thought you liked that one!”

“Of course I do! It’s my own damned song! That doesn’t mean I like it right _now.”_

Brian hums, smiling up at him. There’s a teasing spark in his eyes, and John revels in it. “What would you like right now, then?”

John feels himself suck in a breath, all at once reminded of the arousal still pooled low in his gut. There’s nothing he doesn’t want right now. He wants everything.

He wants one thing a little more than everything else, though.

He feels his cheeks heat, and he leans in to hide his face against Brian’s shoulder. “Will you fuck me?” he asks quietly. “Please?”

Brian takes a slow breath, rubbing a hand between his shoulder blades. “You sure you want that?”

“I know how to,” John says, a touch defensive. “I know you do, too.”

“I don’t have any—”

John leans down and roots around under the couch until he finds a bottle. He holds it up to Brian, who blinks at it. “Roger stashed it here a week ago,” John supplies. “God knows why. Just take it.”

Brian laughs, dimples slipping through. It’s sweet enough that John feels blindsided by the sudden wave of affection that builds up in his chest, and he has to lean forward and kiss the curve of his mouth, then.

Brian smiles even harder, hand drifting across his cheek to tangle into his hair, and then he’s pulling him closer and settling him more comfortably in his lap. He sets to work on the button of John’s jeans and pulls them down just far enough that his cock springs free. Brian palms it once, and John shivers in his arms.

“Alright?” Brian murmurs.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Yeah, come on.”

Brian opens the bottle one-handed, somehow managing to slick up his fingers while still holding John close with his other arm, and then he feels his fingers probing carefully before pushing in and he can’t help but gasp and let his head fall against Brian’s shoulder.

Brian barely pauses, only turning to kiss the top of his head. “Good?”

“I can take more.”

Brian ignores him. He keeps stretching him slowly, scratching his fingers against John’s scalp soothingly when he shakes again, waiting until he settles before adding another long finger.

John turns his head toward him until he can mouth at the skin of his neck. He’s good at this, and John would be lying if he said he’d never thought about it before, never thought about the single-minded focus Brian applies to every part of his life and how it could come out in the bedroom, too. This is different, though—this is focus, but warm. It’s determination turned passion and he feels dizzy from the attention.

He moans when Brian changes the angle, electricity shooting up his spine, and Brian kisses his hair again. “There?”

“Yeah,” he breathes.

Brian’s fingers build a rhythm, and it’s all he can do not to moan with it.

“There you go,” Brian breathes as he squirms and pushes back against his hand, helpless against it. “That’s it, beautiful.”

“Brian, I’m ready.”

“You sure?” Brian asks. He can hear the smile in his voice.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. I’d love to just keep you like this. You’re gorgeous. You don’t know how long I’ve been thinking about this.”

“I think I can— _ah—_ I think I can guess.”

“Yeah? You think you can guess how long I’ve wanted you in my lap like this? How long I’ve wanted to make you feel like this, hear you like this?”

“Since the beginning,” John breathes, because it’s what rings true for him, too. It hits him all at once: how long he’s wanted to he held like this and how long he’s wanted him close. Christ, but he almost lost him, and the sheer luck not only that they’d made it through all that but that after it all they get to have _this_ —it sends a dizzy wave of joy through him, and he grins hazily against Brian’s jaw.

“That’s it,” Brian says, rubbing the back of his neck in an innocent counterpoint to the pleasure he’s causing to curl up John’s spine. “Since the very start."

He presses three fingers up hard against John’s prostate, and it’s too much. John lets a moan out before he can help it, and Brian kisses his cheek. “Fuck me,” he gets out. “Come on. Let me feel you.”

Brian gasps. “Fuck,” he gets out under his breath. His fingers slow, losing some of their coordination as he removes his hand from John’s hair to set to work unbuttoning his own jeans. It takes John a moment to realize what he’s doing, and then he’s scrambling to help, their foreheads bumping lightly together as their hands push each other out of the way. John lets out a helpless laugh and Brian shoots him a grin.

And then Brian gets his jeans off just far enough to free his cock, and then he’s shakily ripping open the condom John gave him and rolling it on quickly, and then he’s pushing _in_ and Jesus, he’s bigger than John expected.

“Okay?” Brian asks, kissing his temple.

John nods tightly. He curls his legs around Brian’s thighs, pulling him closer, and even that has him shifting deep inside him and pulling the air from his lungs. “Give me a second,” John whispers.

Brian nods, kissing him again before stilling. His breath is warm against the side of John’s head, in-out-in-out, a soothing rhythm. He lets it wash over him until he feels relaxed enough to give Brian a shaky nod.

Brian pulls out just the smallest bit before pressing in again, and even that small amount of friction has John’s jaw going slack.

He sighs, tilting his hips into it and pulling Brian closer with a sharp heel against the back of his thigh, and Brian huffs out a laugh. “Feel good?” he whispers.

“Yeah,” John breathes. He arches into it as Brian starts pulling out a little further, thrusting in a little deeper, sending sparks shooting up his spine. “Yeah, s’good. More,” he adds, digging his heel in a little further.

“I knew you’d be a pushy thing in bed.”

“Shut up,” John laughs.

Brian grins against his jaw, moves up to lick into John’s mouth slow and hot as he starts thrusting into him for real, his pace still slow and measured but a new kind of force behind each movement. It forces John to break from the kiss, letting out a low moan as Brian’s cock finally starts brushing into his prostate at each thrust.

Brian presses their foreheads together, and John’s world narrows down to the space between them, the humid, sex-drenched air mixing with the crisp smell of hay and rain. John’s breath comes quick as he meets Brian thrust for thrust, the two of them moving together in perfect sync.

Brian reaches down to haul Brian’s thigh higher up onto his hip, nearly folding him in half and allowing him to thrust that much deeper. John moans loud at the feeling, his jaw dropping, and Brian leans forward to bite at his lower lip.

“Careful or they’ll hear you,” Brian murmurs.

“I don’t care,” John grits out. “Besides, I can’t—” he trails off as Brian changes his pace, grinding short and hard into John’s prostate. “Oh _fuck,_ Bri.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he groans, gasping as Brian reaches down to get a hand around his cock and start pumping him in time to his thrusts.

“I’m so close,” Brian says lowly into his ear. “Come for me. Please, John. I want to see you, I want to feel you come around me, I need it.”

“Oh my god,” John moans out, half-gasping, head thrown back, arching up into it as he feels it barreling closer and closer.

Brian flicks his thumb across the tip of his cock at the same time as he pulls out and thrusts all the way in _hard,_ and John explodes all over Brian’s hand and his own stomach. Brian quickly swallows his moan with a deep kiss, muffling the worst of John’s whimpers with his own lips. His thrusts grow rapidly sloppy and uneven as he chases his own release, and John grips his blunt fingernails hard into Brian’s shoulder blades as he rides the pleasure out.

Just when it feels like he’s on the edge of oversensitive Brian pulls out, ripping the condom off quickly and pumping himself with the hand still coated in John’s come a few times before he adds to the mess with a long groan.

John’s eyelashes flutter as Brian’s come lands hot and sticky against his stomach. Still trapped in the afterglow, he lazily runs a finger through it before bringing it to his own lips, sucking the salty-bitter-warm off of it with a satisfied hum. When he opens his eyes again Brian is watching him hungrily, and when John moves his fingers he leans down to capture his lips, chasing the taste of come off his tongue.

They stay entwined, their kiss turning lazy from its previous fervor, and finally Brian flops backward against the couch again and takes John with him. He grunts as his head makes contact with the arm rest, and John tuts at him.

“Alright?” he asks, stroking a hand through the top of his curls.

“Alright,” Brian says. His lips quirk up in a hazy smile. “Stop fussing,” he adds.

“Can’t help it. I’ve grown quite the habit of it.”

“Well, snap out of it,” Brian tells him. “I’ve never been better.”

John leans back then, far enough that he can fold his arms on top of Brian’s chest and rest his chin on top of them. “Yeah?” he murmurs, and Brian’s smile grows. “Even with everything? All this stuff about money, the new album, your recovery…”

“Even with all that,” Brian says, running his palms up the outside of John’s arms. “Even with all of that, I couldn’t be happier. This is just the beginning for us, John. Things are looking up.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

John sighs softly and settles back against his chest, the sound of his heartbeat echoing in his ears. The smell of sex is lingering with the old must of the barn and the fresh air filtering in from outside. He can smell rain, clean and young and new. He closes his eyes and drifts off to the fading afterglow and the tingle of Brian’s fingers in his hair.

He sleeps in Brian’s bed that night. He tries not to make an event out of his arrival from the basement, but even so Freddie sees him climbing the stairs in the dead of the night. His eyes widen, the sleep in them receding in lieu of something bright and happy. He doesn’t say a word.

Brian sighs happily when John slides into his bed in the darkness. He mumbles something unintelligible and drags him into the cocoon of warm blankets, pressing a messy kiss to the corner of his mouth before drifting off again. For the first time in months John doesn’t dream.

(Two weeks later Roger arrives late for breakfast, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“Did anybody by any chance find something under the couch in the studio? I left something there and now it’s missing.”

Brian blows coffee out of his nose.)

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, this fic is ancient. This is literally eldritch and has been sitting on my hard drive since about spring of 2019, I think. I just kind of forgot I had it. So now here it is, for better or for worse. unbeta'd, I'm drunk, pray for a bitch please, it's been a hell of a week. I appreciate every single one of ya and I hope everyone had a great valentines!!
> 
> (also I swear one day I'll actually write John topping, I have another eldritch draft for the EIFL series where Brian has decided he wants to try out subbing and John and Roger do a bunch of research for it like nerds so hopefully that'll be seeing the light of day soon too)


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